Host Identity Protocol (HIP) is a networking technology that systematically separates the identifier and locator roles of IP addresses and introduces a Host Identity (HI) name space based on a public key security infrastructure. This modification offers a series of benefits such as mobility, multi-homing, end-to-end security, signaling, control/data plane separation, firewall security, e.t.c. Although HIP has not yet been sufficiently applied in mainstream communication networks, industry experts foresee its potential as an integral part of next generation networks.
HIP can be used in various HIP-aware applications as well as in traditional IP-address-based applications and networking technologies, taking middle boxes into account. One of such applications is in Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS), VPLS is a widely used method of providing Ethernet-based Virtual Private Network that supports the connection of geographically separated sites into a single bridged domain over an IP/MPLS network. The popularity of VPLS among commercial and defense organizations underscores the need for robust security features to protect both data and control information.
After investigating the different approaches to HIP, a real world testbed is implemented. Two experiment scenarios were evaluated, one is performed on two open source Linux-based HIP implementations (HIPL and OpenHIP) and the other on two sets of enterprise equipment from two different companies (Tempered Networks and Byres Security). To account for a heterogeneous mix of network types, the Open source HIP implementations were evaluated on different network environments, namely Local Area Network (LAN), Wireless LAN (WLAN), and Wide Area Network (WAN). Each scenario is tested and evaluated for performance in terms of throughput, latency, and jitter.
The measurement results confirmed the assumption that no single solution is optimal in all considered aspects and scenarios. For instance, in the open source implementations, the performance penalty of security on TCP throughput for WLAN scenario is less in HIPL than in OpenHIP, while for WAN scenario the reverse is the case. A similar outcome is observed for the UDP throughput. However, on latency, HIPL showed lower latency for all three network test scenarios. For the legacy equipment experiment, the penalty of security on TCP throughput is about 19% compared with the non-secure scenario while latency is increased by about 87%. This work therefore provides viable information for researchers and decision makers on the optimal solution to securing their VPNs based on the application scenarios and the potential performance penalties that come with each approach.